Regional Food Systems Research Articles

Immediate Needs and Systemic Solutions: Harnessing a Collective Crisis Response by Regional Philanthropy Alongside Systemic Change

On March 13, 2020, the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo invited the John R. Oishei Foundation, the Health Foundation for Western & Central New York, and United Way of Buffalo & Erie County to convene all funders in western New York to respond collectively to the impending COVID-19 crisis. Funding was raised swiftly and, using a racial equity lens, more than $14.2 million was granted in 18 months to more than 400 nonprofits of all sizes serving on the front lines in eight counties. While emergency funding was the first priority for the collective group of more than 60 foundations, the magnitude of the response found the participants answering an important question in May 2020: How do we use this moment and this unprecedented collaboration to innovate and strengthen the region’s ability to face the future? We quickly launched proactive systems-change initiatives to address public policy and develop a robust regional food system. To surface additional collaborative solutions, we issued a “request for ideas” to seek out visionary concepts from nonprofit leaders that were collaborative, included multiple sectors, and addressed persistent challenges by centering race and lived experience. After an overwhelming response, grants were awarded to develop concepts in housing and homelessness, health equity, education, arts and culture, substance use disorders, criminal justice, digital literacy, and refugee services. This transformational work continues with implementation funding for the majority of the plans, which were selected with community input.

Leveraging university resources to build awareness, support regional food policy, and disrupt dominant narratives guiding food-based development: Examples from University of Arizona’s Center for Regional Food Studies

Food projects have become an increasingly popular engine for economic development and branding efforts to promote “creative cities” in the neoliberal context (Joassart-Marcelli & Bosco, 2017). However, proponents of food-based devel­opment often overlook the uneven impacts of such projects and neglect underlying structural, social, and environmental issues. University researchers can play a key role in raising awareness about these issues, inform food policy needs, and create university-community partnerships that can disrupt dominant narratives and support local initiatives that build capacity, equity, and resilience in regional food systems. Located in Tucson, Arizona—a UNESCO City of Gastronomy—researchers at the University of Arizona (UA)’s Center for Regional Food Studies (CRFS), in collaboration with the Climate Assessment for the Southwest (CLIMAS), endeavor to accomplish these urgent tasks through several collaborative efforts described here.

Relationship networks are the key to strong local food economies [Book review

Many readers of this journal are familiar with Ken Meter, whose five decades of working with local community groups, state governments, and tribal nations in the United States to assess, plan, and build local and regional food systems have made him one of the most experienced peo¬ple doing this kind of work. His pioneering eco¬nomic analyses of local food systems and the regional food system plans he has written can be found on the website of the Crossroads Resource Center. This much-awaited book is something different. It weaves together his years of experience in a collection of case studies that are grouped according to themes by chapter and which serve in this fashion to present some overarching lessons from Meter’s career.

The Exploitation of Orphan Legumes for Food, Income, and Nutrition Security in Sub-Saharan Africa

Poverty, food, and nutrition insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have become major concerns in recent times. The effects of climate change, drought, and unpredictable rainfall patterns threaten food production and sustainable agriculture. More so, insurgency, youth restiveness, and politico-economic instability amidst a burgeoning population requiring a sufficient and healthy diet remain front-burner issues in the region. Overdependence on only a few major staple crops is increasingly promoting the near extinction of many crops, especially orphan legumes, which possess immense potentials as protein and nutritional security crops. The major staple crops are declining in yield partly to their inability to adapt to the continuously changing climatic conditions. Remarkably, the orphan legumes are climate-smart crops with enormous agronomic features which foster sustainable livelihood. Research efforts on these crops have not attained a reasonable comparative status with most commercial crops. Though many research organizations and scientists have made efforts to promote the improvement and utilization of these orphan legumes, there is still more to be done. These legumes’ vast genetic resources and economic utility are grossly under-exploited, but their values and promising impacts are immeasurable. Given the United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGs) of zero hunger, improved nutrition, health, and sustainable agriculture, the need to introduce these crops into food systems in SSA and other poverty-prone regions of the world is now more compelling than ever. This review unveils inherent values in orphan legumes needing focus for exploitation viz-a-viz cultivation, commercialization, and social acceptance. More so, this article discusses some of the nutraceutical potentials of the orphan legumes, their global adaptability, and modern plant breeding strategies that could be deployed to develop superior phenotypes to enrich the landraces. Advanced omics technologies, speed breeding, as well as the application of genome editing techniques, could significantly enhance the genetic improvement of these useful but underutilized legumes. Efforts made in this regard and the challenges of these approaches were also discussed.

A collective call to strengthen monitoring and evaluation efforts to support healthy and sustainable food systems: 'The Accountability Pact'.

There is widespread agreement among experts that a fundamental reorientation of global, regional, national and local food systems is needed to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals Agenda and address the linked challenges of undernutrition, obesity and climate change described as the Global Syndemic. Recognising the urgency of this imperative, a wide range of global stakeholders - governments, civil society, academia, agri-food industry, business leaders and donors - convened at the September 2021 UN Food Systems Summit to coordinate numerous statements, commitments and declarations for action to transform food systems. As the dust settles, how will they be pieced together, how will governments and food corporations be held to account and by whom? New data, analytical methods and global coalitions have created an opportunity and a need for those working in food systems monitoring to scale up and connect their efforts in order to inform and strengthen accountability actions for food systems. To this end, we present - and encourage stakeholders to join or support - an Accountability Pact to catalyse an evidence-informed transformation of current food systems to promote human and ecological health and wellbeing, social equity and economic prosperity.

Principles for Evidence-Based and Sustainable Food System Innovations for Healthier Diets.

Climate change, rapid urbanization, war, and economic recession are key drivers of the current food systems’ disruption, which has been exacerbated by the COVID pandemic. Local, regional, and global food systems are unable to provide consumers with nutritious and affordable diets. Suboptimal diets exacerbate the triple burden of malnutrition, with micronutrient deficiencies affecting more than two billion people, two billion people suffering from overweight, and more than 140 million children who are stunted. The unaffordability of nutritious diets represents an obstacle for many, especially in low- and middle-income countries where healthy diets are five times more expensive than starchy staple diets. Food system transformations are urgently required to provide consumers with more affordable and nutritious diets that are capable of meeting social and environmental challenges. In this review, we underline the critical role of innovation within the food system transformation discourse. We aim to define principles for implementing evidence-based and long-term food system innovations that are economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable and, above all, aimed at improving diets and public health. We begin by defining and describing the role of innovation in the transformation of food systems and uncover the major barriers to implementing these innovations. Lastly, we explore case studies that demonstrate successful innovations for healthier diets.

Modeling and optimizing the beef supply chain in the Northeastern U.S.

AbstractSeasonality of beef cattle supplies raises supply coordination challenges. In the Northeastern U.S., for example, producers often argue that lack of access to slaughter and processing facilities limits expansion potential, whereas slaughterers and processors posit that there is not enough supply to keep plants fully utilized. We develop an optimization model to determine whether the existing slaughter and processing infrastructure in the region meets producers’ demand for these services. The model allows us to identify the minimum‐cost solution to efficiently utilize those facilities and to assess relative costs associated with product handling. The analysis explores the spatial structure of the Northeast beef cattle assembly, slaughter, processing, and distribution system that might result if these supply chain activities were regionally coordinated. We find that a consolidated network that allows for coordination of the regional beef supply chain system can address possible bottlenecks of plant capacity. This study sheds light on ways to establish and improve regional coordination mechanisms to enhance efficiency in regional food systems.

Carbon and oxygen stable isotopic evidence for diverse sheep and goat husbandry strategies amid a Final Bronze Age farming milieu in the Kyrgyz Tian Shan

AbstractThe mountains of Central Asia during the Bronze and Iron Ages are increasingly being reconceived as an important zone for intensive crop cultivation in combination with pastoralist herding. However, very little information is known about how farming practices intersected with livestock husbandry, especially at high‐elevation sites. This paper presents the first insights to ancient animal management strategies in the Tian Shan through incremental carbon and oxygen stable isotope analysis of domesticated caprine teeth recovered from the Chap‐1 farmstead located at 2000 m.a.s.l. in Kyrgyzstan (1065 to 825 cal BCE). We implemented a fully reproducible analysis of time‐series isotope data in the R programming language. Results show subtle but variable manipulation of domesticated caprine diets at subannual scales, suggesting mixed strategies of providing access to a small amount of C4 plant biomass, in addition to summer movements to high pastures where the overall carbon isotopic composition of graze was depleted in 13C compared with that of the environs of the site or lowland pastures. Nevertheless, caprine dietary intake was overwhelmingly dominated by C3 plants. Analysis of domesticated caprine birth seasonality reveals off‐season fall and winter births, which represent a common strategy employed by ancient producers in Central Asia to improve herd security and extend meat and milk availability. This study illustrates a well‐integrated system of agro‐pastoralist production that can help clarify the social dynamics underlying food systems in the mountain regions of Central and Inner Asia in the Final Bronze Age. It further reveals the capability for more sedentary agro‐pastoralist communities to facilitate wider interregional cultural connections, through limited seasonal herding mobility and investment in highland settlement.

Regional food system resilience in Ireland: a ‘Potato Effect’

ABSTRACT Fruit and vegetables (F&V) are nutritionally important for human health, and their perishability means that they are particularly vulnerable to supply chain delays. Ireland is a net importer of F&V. Brexit potentially heightens food system vulnerabilities for Ireland. Mapping is used to visualize the diversity of Ireland’s F&V supply across four regions of Europe and the UK. It appears that Ireland is highly reliant on the UK for F&V imports. However, when fresh potato imports, which contribute a small portion of Ireland’s potato consumption, are excluded from the analysis, Western Europe is more important for vegetable imports, and a significant supplier of other fresh food types. Options to build local food system resilience are discussed for Ireland. A graphical representation is a useful approach to investigate the impact of food system vulnerabilities and shocks such as Brexit.

Scanning Models of Food Systems Resilience in the Indo-Pacific Region

The Indo-Pacific is a region of the world experiencing rapid growth in population and development. However, it is also exposed to a number of social, economic, geopolitical, and biophysical stressors, which may undermine the region's ability to support its population, ensure food security, and sustain livelihoods. In response to the complex suite of stressors, a number of development initiatives and research programs have been established to build resilience in the region's food systems. These initiatives vary in scope and scale, but also in what they mean by the term resilience and the components of the food system they address. This variation has implications for the outcomes of these efforts and how well they match a theoretical ideal of resilience. This review examines how resilience and food systems are defined, conceptualized, and applied within research studies and projects or initiatives on food systems resilience funded or supported by national, regional, or multilateral government, and non-governmental institutions in the Indo-Pacific region. It also compares how the concepts are treated from an academic or theoretical perspective vs. in practical applications. We take a two-pronged approach: first, identifying organizations engaged in the Indo-Pacific region and developing an inventory of initiatives and projects that have bearing on food systems resilience; and second, carrying out literature searches to record research studies in the region that examine resilience within food systems. We then identify any formalized frameworks or definitions of resilience and/or food systems guiding these projects and studies. The results indicate there is a heavy focus on climate change and natural disasters, and to a lesser extent health-related shocks, in food systems resilience research and practice. Definitions, however, are inconsistently reported, and are often more simplistic than resilience theory depicts, favoring resilience conceptualizations around adaptation and a production-oriented food systems framing. While the specific definitions vary between research and applied projects, the fragmented and ambiguous use of terms presents a challenge for policy applications and coordination. Overall, establishing some clear guiding resilience principles, modified according to contextual factors, could enable more streamlined resilience work in Indo-Pacific food systems.

Agroecological Transition: A Territorial Examination of the Simultaneity of Limited Farmer Livelihoods and Food Insecurity

Nutritional disease, persistent food insecurity, ecological devastation, and limited sustainable livelihoods among small and beginning (SB) farmers coexist as unintended consequences of trying to address these challenges separately. Agroecology is useful for holistically understanding a community’s food system dynamics, identifying regime lock-ins, and developing pathways to transition to a sustainable food system. Focusing on two often divergent publics, SB farmers and food-insecure populations, this research answers the questions: What critical agroecological characteristics are lacking in a food system contributing to both limited livelihoods of SB farmers and food-insecure populations? In what ways might the relationships of these two publics be central to an agroecological transition to a regional sustainable food system? We present a case study for the city-region Duluth-Northland, Minnesota, USA, by combining methodological and theoretical insights from participatory action research, agroecology, and sustainability transitions literature. Results include a current state of regional food flows, illuminate the food system’s enabling and inhibitory factors, and highlight opportunities for exercising local agency to transition to a sustainable food system using agroecological principles. This research suggests developing relational spaces where two typically divergent publics can dialogue and build reciprocal relationships to construct new food pathways. Findings also highlight a need to develop a social infrastructure to support SB farmer livelihoods, recognize their contribution to the public good, and simultaneously address multiple dimensions of food insecurity. This study provides preliminary guidance for mobilizing action at the nexus of health and food access, environment, and regenerative agriculture livelihoods.

Challenges in Assessing the Level of Plant-Based Food Self-Sufficiency Using Publicly Available Data in the Regional Context of Slovenia

Abstract Methods for assessing regional food self-sufficiency are poorly developed worldwide, while knowledge of the characteristics of regional food self-sufficiency could help in designing more sustainable and resilient regional food systems. This paper addresses the challenge of defining and assessing food self-sufficiency at different geographical levels and provides a detailed presentation of the method for assessing the regional plant-based food self-sufficiency rate using publicly available data from administrative sources, taking the Slovenian development regions as an example. The results indicate the need to improve the reliability of the data used to identify the characteristics of regional food self-sufficiency and to a more effective coordination between existing agricultural databases.

Sustainability assessment of short food supply chains (SFSC): developing and testing a rapid assessment tool in one African and three European city regions

Recent literature demonstrates the contribution of short food supply chains (SFSC) to regional economies and sustainable food systems, and acknowledges their role as drivers for sustainable development. Moreover, different types of SFSC have been supported by urban food policies (UFP) over the few last years and actors from the food chain became part of new institutional settings for urban food policies. However, evidence from the sustainability impact assessment (SIA) of these SFSC in urban contexts is limited. Our paper presents an approach for the development of an SIA framework for different SFSC types. In addition, a practical application of the tool in four metropolitan regions (Berlin, London, Ljubljana and Nairobi) is tested. The conceptual development of the SIA framework is based on an in-depth analysis of existing SIA frameworks and methods for assessing the sustainability of agriculture, food chains and food systems and adapted to the specific needs of analysing SFSC in metropolitan regions. The operational value and utility of the framework and the tool were tested with social and natural scientists and local stakeholders. The assessment results demonstrate that SFSC seems to be more sustainable than the baseline (long global food chains) in the social dimension, but also feature specific strengths and weaknesses concerning their economic and environmental sustainability. This might give an indication for regional adjusted strategies and food chain innovations that improve the sustainability performance may be required. We found the tool useful for framing the dialogue between food chain actors, consumers and policy, because it makes benefits and trade-offs of the chain types operating in an urban–rural context more visible and communicable.

Contributors

Contributors

KNOWLEDGE AND INNOVATION PARTNERSHIPS FOR SMART AND SUSTAINABLE TERRITORIAL DEVELOPMENT

The complexity of contemporary territorial development challenges – such as uneven growth trajectories triggered by monocentric development, social and economic inequalities, depopulation of rural and remote territories, environmental degradation – calls for addressing them in a systemic, multi-level and cross-sectoral manner. Collaborative and participatory approaches are increasingly recognised as a precondition for smart and sustainable territorial development where local resources and digital technologies are employed in ways that stimulate economic growth, increase social integration and wellbeing, and improve environmental conditions. We apply the framework of quadruple helix to explore the role of knowledge and innovation partnerships (KIPs) in three key areas of contemporary territorial development in Latvia, i.e., regional food systems, rural-urban interfaces, and rural digitalisation. The study is based on a review and synthesis of theme-specific results from across 11 national and European projects carried out by the Baltic Studies Centre since 2007, and national expert interviews. The results suggest that KIPs in rural and territorial development contexts have specific constellations and activities both within and across the three areas. It can be more challenging to establish KIPs there than in urban surroundings because of scarcer resources. When established, KIPs allow for pooling resources of different stakeholders for joint practical problem solving. Improved understanding and knowledge of local resources and systems within which those resources circulate, and targeted support for multi-actor knowledge and innovation collaboration within and across territories, including rural-urban ones, are needed to enable KIPs for sustainable territorial development.

STRENGTHENING THE SUSTAINABILITY OF THE LOCAL FOOD SYSTEM BY CHOOSING ECO-LOCALIZATION SCENARIO

EU institutions and the public are increasingly debating giving priority to regional and local food systems, short supply chains which create opportunities for a healthier lifestyle and the strengthening of the local economy. The aim of this research is to highlight the possibilities of strengthening the sustainability of the local food system by choosing the eco-localization scenario. The research methods: analysis of scientific literature, documents, good practice examples, systematization, parallel method, etc. The eco-localization scenario requires a long-term vision and a "sustainable solutions" approach, the geographical area relies on its producers and consumers, is oriented towards the local consumer, but the openness of the economy is not abandoned. The driving forces that can help to strengthen the sustainability of local food system by choosing the eco-localization scenario were identified: network of local food system objects; short food supply chains strategies: business to consumer (B2C), business to business (B2B) business to government (B2G); cooperation and stakeholders of local food system activities; local food system stakeholders and relationships; conditions for strategic breakthrough in local food system development.

Farm to Institution to Farm: Circular Food Systems With Native Entomoculture

Edible insects recycle food waste, which can help feed a hungrier planet by making food systems more circular and diversifying protein production. The potential for entomophagy (i.e., insect cuisine) to contribute to waste recycling and lower input food production is only beginning to be explored in the U.S., although insects have been consumed by people for millennia in a wide range of cultures. In this perspective piece, we consider as a case study the potential for university foodservice programs in New England to serve as incubators for circular entomophagous food systems. Students are likely early adopters of entomophagy because they increasingly demand sustainable non-meat protein options. University foodservices meanwhile purchase large amounts of food wholesale from local producers, utilize standardized pre-processing, and generate consistent waste streams which may be valuable feed for local insect farmers. Current Farm to Institution approaches strengthen regional food systems by connecting small farmers with university foodservices; we argue that a similar model (Farm to Institution to Farm) could support establishment of local insect farms, introduce edible insects to a relatively receptive base of university student customers, and provide a more sustainable mechanism for repurposing university food waste as insect feed. But to enable this type of food system, additional requirements include: (1) research on domestication of native insect species; (2) investment in processing capacity, ensuring new insect farmers have reliable markets for raw insect products; (3) infrastructure to recirculate waste streams within existing food systems; and (4) creation of recipes that entice new insect consumers.

Initial social network analysis of producers working towards sustainability suggests weak ties and potential fragmentation

For farmers to adopt and maintain sustainable farming practices, they must have the resources and network to succeed with this work and must realize a positive impact on their business model. As a food system is ultimately made up of the people, organizations, and institutions that grow, move, buy and sell food, we must understand who is at the center of this network, who is well-connected, and who is peripheral. Within a particular regional food system in a highly productive southeastern U.S. state, the network of local producers interested in sustainable production, including environmental and economic components, seems to be growing. However, it is unclear who benefits from this system and whether this system is growing in a way that encourages and enhances the benefits for sustainable agriculture. Existing evidence for the network size and its vulnerabilities has been anecdotal, from Extension agents and their contacts with individual producers, rather than based on systematic research. We used social network analysis to understand the status of the system and its constituents. Connections between producers appear to be weak overall with potential fragmentation, suggesting a fragility that could easily derail efforts to increase sustainable production in the region.

Changes in Food Behavior of Russians in the Context of the Covid-19 Pandemic

The subject of the article is the eating behavior of Russians under conditions of the Covid-19 pandemic. We defined the purpose of the study as to study the changes in the eating behavior of the main socio-demographic groups of Russian society in 2020-2021 during the Covid-19 pandemic. The material of the study includes the works of foreign and Russian authors in the field of the study of food systems and food behavior of various social of various social groups under conditions of the Covid-19 pandemic. The methods used are divided into two groups: theoretical and empirical. The group of theoretical methods included: systematic approach, analysis of the works of foreign and domestic researchers on changes in world and regional food systems, and in individual food practices in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. The empirical method is represented by a series of expert interviews conducted by the authors of the study in August - September 2021. The study showed that changes in the eating behavior of Russians during the Covid-19 pandemic are contradictory and non-linear, they are embedded in the regional food system and have a significant impact on local food markets. The study demonstrates importance of further interdisciplinary study of the food practices, in general, food culture of various social groups in Russian society. Such studies are necessary for the development and smooth functioning regional food systems, for a comprehensive solution to the problems of ensuring of food security under the conditions of economic recession caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19, Obesity, and Food Insecurity Syndemic.

Purpose of ReviewTo introduce and provide evidence for the new Syndemic of COVID-19, Obesity, and Food Insecurity and propose strategies for mitigating its impact, particularly among vulnerable populations.Recent FindingsThe COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated obesity, food insecurity, and the existing inequities in the essential workforce. Food insecurity is driven by unsustainable dietary patterns and is associated with higher rates of obesity, which increases the risk of COVID-19 infections, hospitalizations, and deaths. The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately impacted the essential food supply chain workforce. Strengthening the social safety net and expanding worker protections will increase food security and secure livelihoods during and beyond the scope of the COVID-19 pandemic.SummaryStrengthening local and regional food systems provides a common solution to both the new Syndemic of COVID-19, Obesity, and Food Insecurity and the Global Syndemic of Obesity, Undernutrition, and Climate Change by promoting sustainable food production and consumption, and prioritizing the food supply chain workforce.